Johannesburg - The National Small Business Chamber (NSBC), hosts of the popular My Business Expo, will be running the Access to Finance Indaba for the first time.
It is geared towards startups and growing small business owners, delivering practical access to finance information.
The My Biz Expo will be held in Johannesburg on March 12, in Durban June 4, in Port Elizabeth on August 13 and in Cape Town September 10.
According to the organisers it makes sense that someone who has already overcome a problem is usually the best person to provide an effective solution. Challenges are often the cause of the high failure rates of SMEs in SA.
"When it comes to delivering business solutions it is not one size fits all. The small business market needs solutions tailored for their specific needs. The problems faced by startups and small business are very different to those encountered by big business," according to the organisers.
"Also, larger businesses employ experts to manage things such as Finance, IT and HR, whereas with small business the entrepreneur wears all these hats. As such, solutions should be easy to understand and free from the jargon used by industry specialists, so they can be used by the man in the street running a business and creating employment."
Small businesses are more and more developing practical, ground-breaking innovations that address the challenges of their own sector, rather than big business attempting to do so in a "one approach fits all model".
Darlene Menzies of SMEasy, an accounting and business management solution for the startup and small business market, will, for instance, be one of the speakers at the indaba.
SMEasy is designed for use by entrepreneurs who have no accounting know-how and who don’t understand accounting jargon. Another product of Menzies is Finfind, a one-stop solution for access to finance for small business, which is soon to be launched.
To register for the expo, visit this website.